Album Notes

Fresno, California is home-base for Karen and the band Espacio. On this album, they join forces to create a statement that says "Yes, indeed, there is great jazz coming out of Fresno." So who's in this band?

Eva Scow's mandolin work is stunning, never mind that she's only 21 years old. Eva is one of the premier mandolin players in the country. She has been playing music since age 3, beginning with the piano. After studying classical music for the first 10 years, she discovered Jazz and Brasilian music and began to play gigs with musicians around the state. Eva traveled to Brasil to study with some of Brasil's premier instrumentalists. In 2006, Eva was invited to participate in a workshop in New York City with musicians Edgar Meyer, Bela Fleck, Jerry Douglass, and Mike Marshall. The workshop culminated in a performance at Carnegie Hall.

Born in Fort Worth, Texas, bassist Kevin Hill lived in China and West Africa during childhood and began performing music at age 12. Kevin has played bass since he was 16 and has been a member of numerous bands in California and New York. In 2000 he attended New School Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York City. He is currently working with several different bands in the Fresno area, playing jazz, funk, soul, blues, reggae, zydeco and a host of other styles. He is a member of the Armen Nalbandian Trio, and is the house bass player in the Rhythms of Art monthly jazz concert series at the Fresno Art Museum.

The group is rounded out by guitarist Mike Taylor, and drummer Nathan Guzman, both of whom keep very busy gigging from the California coast to Reno, Nevada, playing for many events and in a variety of styles. Their versatility and mature ability to complement and interplay with other band members make them part of Fresno's A-list of musicians. On this album, they also contributed greatly to the arrangements of the tunes.

Karen's vocals here show her versatility, and her sense of self as just another instrumentalist in the band. She sings and scats, she is clearly listening to and responding to the other instruments, and she interprets the lyrics with phrasing and passion that are uniquely hers. In October, 2009, she and the band made their debut performance at the Sun Valley Jazz Festival where they received rave reviews from both audience members and the other bands.